No acquisition by US-based bank, clarifies Dubai lender Emirates NBD

Dubai lender Emirates NBD has issued a statement, clarifying that 101,731,408 of its shares were purchased by 254 unique investors on May 28.

The statement, published on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) website, came in response to local media reports suggesting that US-based Bank of America had acquired 100 million shares – equalling a 1.51 per cent stake – of Emirates NBD worth around Dhs900m.

Read: Bank of America acquires stake in Dubai’s Emirates NBD

The bank said:”The largest purchase by one single investor was 10,116,892 shares on this date (May 28th 2020).”

“This increase in purchase volume coincides with Emirates NBD’s inclusion in the ‘MSCI Emerging Markets Standard Index’ and Emirates NBD Bank confirms that a large number of these purchases were made by Emerging Markets Index Tracking Funds,” the statement added.

Emirates NBD posted a 24 per cent year-on-year decrease in its first quarter net profit, amounting to Dhs2.1bn, down from Dhs2.74bn in Q1 last year.

Read: Dubai’s Emirates NBD posts 24% fall in net profit for Q1 2020

Meanwhile, its 2019 net profits rose 44 per cent year-on-year, equalling Dhs14.5bn in 2019.